The minimum standard for pitching nat’l TV

On Monday I interviewed a national morning show producer. I showed her 16 actual pitches and recorded her reactions to them.

(If you want to watch the recording, you should join the Inner Circle – you’ll get access to it immediately.)

As you would expect, she emphasized how important it is to actually know her show and prove that you know it in your pitch. And she lamented how few of the pitches she receives actually do that.

Shoot, she said she still gets pitches addressed to “Dear NAME” or “Hi XXX”!!!

The minimum standard for pitching national TV is to mention host name(s) and the type of segment you see your story as fitting into.

Here is a quick checklist on how to do that, depending on how much time you are willing to invest to give your pitch the best chance of success. Times noted are for morning shows:

– 10 seconds – Google the show, note the hosts. Include them in your pitch.

– 3 minutes – DVR the show or watch it while you’re at the gym. Fast forward until you see a graphic with a segment name on it, and include that name in your pitch.

– 30 minutes – DVR the show. Fast forward through the first hour, which is usually stuff you can’t pitch, like White House news and terrorism and so on. Fast forward the commercials. Fast forward the celebrity news and interviews. For what’s left over, start watching until you determine it’s irrelevant to your organization, or otherwise unpitchable. Based on what’s left, you’ll know which segment you best match up with. Include that (and a host’s name) in your pitch.

– 90 minutes – DVR the show three days in a row. See above instructions to watch all three episodes in 90 minutes. Warning – you will feel the same guilty pleasure feeling you did when you skipped a class in high school. You will keep saying to yourself, “I should be actually working right now – I hope no one is noticing me.” Ignore this – you are actually working very hard and very smart. You’ll be close to certain which segment you belong in, and you’ll have one or more examples you can cite in your pitch.

Obviously I’m half-joking with the first two. If you believe your idea is worth considering by some of the most busy and stressed people on the planet (morning show producers), the least you can do for them is spend 30 minutes preparing.

If you read that and just thought, “There’s no way I can spend that much time on just one outlet, and 90 minutes, what a joke,” that’s fine. You just determined that you shouldn’t be pitching a national morning show, so you can save yourself the time of trying and failing.

If you’re still interested in national broadcast and want more of the producer’s helpful tips, apply for the Inner Circle today. The first time you log in you’ll see the link to her interview right in the middle of the page.